Absolutely the mother rat is a real pain in the ass. From what I've read, the developers put her in as a joke...since rats are usually the easiest enemies you fight in a RPG, they thought they'd change it up for this one. I couldn't beat her until I was level 8; not only does she have a ton of hitpoints, she summons swarms of really nasty rats as she gets progressively injured. Even at level 8, with a fully trained group, it took me about 3 times to get it right.

yeah, after running into a brick wall at level 4 I think I'll have to go back to the dungeon later. luckily that dwarf makes quick transit through the dungeon quite easy. the one thing that is kind of annoying is the amount of XP you get per kill doesn't seem to be matching the difficulty of the situations; sure, I can see only getting 1 or so XP for rats on their own, but there should be a bonus for when you get swarmed by more than 6.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

Yeah all the experience you get for killing things/completeing quests seems fixed. I must admit I do prefer when you get more experience when you tackle enimies situations above your level. It's no real deal breaker though.

I have a question before I buy this game. Do any enemies respawn? This is always a game-killer for me. As soon as Thugs started respawning in NWN2, I lost interest. The same issue ruined Stalker for me, Sacred 2, and probably a few more games as well. There have been a few games that had well placed and rare respawns that were good, but most games seem to overdo it. Its like they put those in there to slow you down so they can advertise 60 hours of gameplay as if respawns were content.

I 'think' i have noticed some wild boars respawning in the first area but can not say for sure.

On another note, I settled on playing the Elven soldier. he seems to be a nice mix of melee (spear so far) bow and some buffs and heals.

the wolves definitely respawned in the starting area, but there was supposed to be a whole pack of them in the area so it felt a bit more natural. other than that I haven't noticed anything respawning, but I haven't had to leave the city yet.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

I have a question before I buy this game. Do any enemies respawn? This is always a game-killer for me. As soon as Thugs started respawning in NWN2, I lost interest. The same issue ruined Stalker for me, Sacred 2, and probably a few more games as well. There have been a few games that had well placed and rare respawns that were good, but most games seem to overdo it. Its like they put those in there to slow you down so they can advertise 60 hours of gameplay as if respawns were content.

I agree with you. Really hate repawns allthough I got through Far Cry 2 gritting my teeth because I liked the rest of the game so well. With regaurds to Drakensang, there is some mild respawning in some areas, no repawning in some areas and I have not noticed any respawning in quest "dungeon like areas" like the brewery rat quest. Plus the monsters that respawn appear on your map and are easily avoidable if so desired.

I have a question before I buy this game. Do any enemies respawn? This is always a game-killer for me. As soon as Thugs started respawning in NWN2, I lost interest. The same issue ruined Stalker for me, Sacred 2, and probably a few more games as well. There have been a few games that had well placed and rare respawns that were good, but most games seem to overdo it. Its like they put those in there to slow you down so they can advertise 60 hours of gameplay as if respawns were content.

Rarely do enemies respawn. Sometimes you'll see it in like forests and such (wolves and bears), but it's the exception rather than the rule here.

Also,

Quote from: Greg Wak

Yeah all the experience you get for killing things/completeing quests seems fixed. I must admit I do prefer when you get more experience when you tackle enimies situations above your level. It's no real deal breaker though.

There's actually an XP adjustment based upon a level differential. If you open up the console (keypress K) it'll show you all combat and other rolls. And you'll see that there's a level adjustment; so while Ceekay was getting 1 xp for rat, as I did that dungeon at level 8, I was getting zero xp for each rat.

It sort of adds up, but you really get the bulk of your XPs from doing quests anyways.

There was a point in the first section that I was getting zero for some rats I killed. But I never got a large amount for things like Harpys that were really hard for me to kill at level 4. Maybe it only adjusts downward? Still love the game and the artwork. The gloomy forrest really was dark and shadowy. I look forward to each new section of the map that I'm sent to. Still in the early part of the game too.

There was a point in the first section that I was getting zero for some rats I killed. But I never got a large amount for things like Harpys that were really hard for me to kill at level 4. Maybe it only adjusts downward? Still love the game and the artwork. The gloomy forrest really was dark and shadowy. I look forward to each new section of the map that I'm sent to. Still in the early part of the game too.

Yeah I haven't seen an upward increase, either. Harpies are a real pain, because they cause wounds...

I don't know why I am having such a hard time breaking the ice on this game. It seems like it should be ideal for me, but I find myself completely disinterested every time I try to play it. I think its the pacing and the dialog. It takes too long to travel, pick flowers, break barrels, and have even simple conversations with NPC's. The long winded stories that so many NPC's have seem completely unrelated to the lore, story, or anything that may effect me in any way. I had the same problem trying to get into the Witcher.

Its not like I am expecting an action game either. I am perfectly content to spend all day on a Geneforge or Eschalon type of RPG. Even the long winded dialog in Gothic 1 and 2 never bothered me. I am having a hard time trying to put my finger on what it is that isn't working for me in Drakensang. Is the first few hours of Drakensang similar to what I can expect in the rest of the game?

I wish they had expanded the options for your allies to automatically do stuff in battle. as far as I can tell if you want someone under your control to cast spells you have to take control of them manually- I was fighting the amoebas last night and my charlatans (Gladys) fire spell seemed to do a nice bit of damage to them, but to use it I'd have to drop control of my spell weaver and either have her just stand there or run in with a sword while I had Gladys cast the fire spell. this also led to another annoyance that cropped up- everytime I did that I'd lose my target when I switched back to my main character for her thunderbolt attack, and with 4 other attackers on one amoeba it turned into a game of find the pixel to get the targetting back. did I miss it or is there no key mapped for targetting purposes?

For a moment after finishing the temple basement I thought there was going to be a twist in the story, but I was hoping a bit too much I guess:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I was half expecting the Oracle to pick someone else for the Dragon Quest, especially with all those other unique looking characters standing around your party.

I'm still having a blast though, it's just these small things that are keeping it from perfection.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

I don't know why I am having such a hard time breaking the ice on this game. It seems like it should be ideal for me, but I find myself completely disinterested every time I try to play it. I think its the pacing and the dialog. It takes too long to travel, pick flowers, break barrels, and have even simple conversations with NPC's.

I am with you on this one. Spending like 4 seconds to loot a rat, then 6 seconds to skin it, then repeat it for 4 or 5 rats that I've just killed - that's a lot of time wasted on mundane stuff. Plus the running speed is pretty slow and the world is fairly large, I estimate that I spend 90% of my time in this game doing something boring like running, looting or skinning.

I wonder if there is any mod or setting that would allow me to speed up looting/skinning/herb gathering.

I didn't get that far yet, so I can't really comment on whether it's going to improve, but I heard the game speeds up a little later on.

I don't know why I am having such a hard time breaking the ice on this game. It seems like it should be ideal for me, but I find myself completely disinterested every time I try to play it. I think its the pacing and the dialog. It takes too long to travel, pick flowers, break barrels, and have even simple conversations with NPC's.

I am with you on this one. Spending like 4 seconds to loot a rat, then 6 seconds to skin it, then repeat it for 4 or 5 rats that I've just killed - that's a lot of time wasted on mundane stuff. Plus the running speed is pretty slow and the world is fairly large, I estimate that I spend 90% of my time in this game doing something boring like running, looting or skinning.

I've found that setting my main to loot one rat, then quickly switching to other characters to loot the other, and then doing the same with skinning speeded things up, but after awhile the time spent outweighed the returns for rats. it was a good thing I took my time to skin the spiders though, as they had a nice rate of return.

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In combat, are you able to pause and issue orders to your team like in the Baldur's Gate games?

yeah, you can even queue up attacks/spells/actions. the bad thing is the camera is fixed on your character, so if you have a bad view on your target due to party members blocking your line of site or the camera not being able to get the right view due to ceilings or walls you'll occasionally have to play a game of 'find the enemy pixels' to select your target.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

In combat, are you able to pause and issue orders to your team like in the Baldur's Gate games?

Yes, you are. By using spacebar. You can also queue up the commands by holding Ctrl (or was it Shift? I switched to ETW lately ).

About looting/skinning. It takes pretty long to START looting/skinning and I don't think there is anything we can do about it. However, once the looting screen appeared and you clicked OK, you don't have to wait for the animation to finish - right-click the next target. Helps to shave off a second or two.

Is there anyway to make your party stay in one place instead of rushing in to attack.

Trying to use my archer to weaken a group of enemies and I get off one shot and everyone else runs in ,so I have to drop my clever plan and run in an wail the snot outta the bad guys like everyone else. So much for setting up an ambush.

Is there anyway to make your party stay in one place instead of rushing in to attack.

Trying to use my archer to weaken a group of enemies and I get off one shot and everyone else runs in ,so I have to drop my clever plan and run in an wail the snot outta the bad guys like everyone else. So much for setting up an ambush.

I think J toggles their stances between aggressive and defensive, as does clicking on the icon at the bottom right hand corner of their character portrait (toggles between a sword and shield). defensive stance should just have them stand around.

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In the blood mountains. Of all things trying to pick up the stupid frog for the witch. Not the guy you give a bracelet to that turns him into a frog, the other one sitting on a stump by the pond. When you come back there are 6 warriors and I kept getting sliced and diced. I had to try and lure them into the other toads as they would leave me and start attacking them but it still took me like 20 tries. Brutal.

In the blood mountains. Of all things trying to pick up the stupid frog for the witch. Not the guy you give a bracelet to that turns him into a frog, the other one sitting on a stump by the pond. When you come back there are 6 warriors and I kept getting sliced and diced. I had to try and lure them into the other toads as they would leave me and start attacking them but it still took me like 20 tries. Brutal.

Unrelated-double shot arrows is really nice!

Spoiler for Hiden:

Lol, you can talk your way out of that one...and actually, I found out later (because I did exactly what you did; i.e., I chopped them to pieces)...if you resolve it bloodlessly, you get a better reward!

In the blood mountains. Of all things trying to pick up the stupid frog for the witch. Not the guy you give a bracelet to that turns him into a frog, the other one sitting on a stump by the pond. When you come back there are 6 warriors and I kept getting sliced and diced. I had to try and lure them into the other toads as they would leave me and start attacking them but it still took me like 20 tries. Brutal.

Unrelated-double shot arrows is really nice!

Spoiler for Hiden:

Lol, you can talk your way out of that one...and actually, I found out later (because I did exactly what you did; i.e., I chopped them to pieces)...if you resolve it bloodlessly, you get a better reward!

Spoiler for Hiden:

HOW! The seargent made one comment and then I went straight into the pause before battle. Did I fail some sort of check? It took me forever to win that battle.

Thanks for checking in Eightball. Did not get a hammer in that battle. Will look once more for the woodcutter but I'm pretty good at crisscrossing. I so wish there was an english language walkthrough for this. Especially since it locks out an area when you are done with it. Still having fun. And allthough the story is nothing groundbreaking, I'm enjoying it. I'm sure Lizard boy is going to get it eventually.

I'm enjoying this game quite a bit. I'm still poking around in the big city, but it looks like I'm close to starting the dragon quests.

I always have a tendency to hoard poiints, but this game has me taking that to new extremes. I'm currently level 4 and have spent virtually nothing on character development (other than the odd skill purchase of arcane lore and a few crafting skills and recipes). With a couple thousand points staring me in the face, I suppose it's time to start allocating some of them. I think what's kicked my hoarding instinct into even higher gear n this game is the wide disparity of value in the skill points (single and double digits on weapon, character, and battle skills, as compared to multiple hundreds of points on character attributes).

My main is a Ranger. My question for those of you with some time in the game is this: how are you allocating your character points? I am speaking in generalities here. I'm not worried about a max/min build, I just want to make sure I'm not wasting valuable points. So, do you primarily use your points to beef up your character's main attributes (Dex for my Ranger, Courage for the Amazon, etc.) or do you find that you use the majority of your points on building up weapons, styles, skills, etc.?

I do realize the importance of willpower, so I plan on pumping up everyone's willpower, but I'd appreciate some general feelings on basic character development in Drakensang.

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Xbox Live: SukaroPSN: Suroka

Until I die I'll sing these songs on the shores of BabylonStill looking for a home in a world where I belong~Switchfoot

I always have a tendency to hoard poiints, but this game has me taking that to new extremes. I'm currently level 4 and have spent virtually nothing on character development (other than the odd skill purchase of arcane lore and a few crafting skills and recipes).

I am having exactly the same problem. Too many options, unknown game system and no way to reset/respec make me afraid to screw up. Sigh.

I am in know way an expert on this as I just want to play the game not spend time researching the perfect build. I'm up to level eight and for my ranger I have been doing skills and talents mostly. It seems so far I can't improve the bow skill more than one or 2 a level as it hits "max". I did put a point into constitution as I wanted to get an endurance skill that required it. I'm cranking up willpower as fast as I can as well. For my gang I'm putting most of the points into skills and talents as well. Seems okay so far

Generally, I always max my weapon skill, and then put points in the sundry other skills that are useful. Willpower is a must for all characters (helps avoid wounds, which really end up killing your character far quicker than loss of hitpoints); you should have one person with treat poison and treat wound around 10 or so; and one person with pick lock and disarm locks. I also have one guy with animal and plant lore, so I can get stuff off corpses.

Leftover points generally go to Strength, because it directly raises weapon damage, and contributes to attack values and vitality points. Nice thing about the game is you can right click on virtually anything on the character sheet, and it explains the entry, as well as all of the attributes that contribute to it.

I went with the witches, although I apparently got dinged for shedding blood when getting the cooking pot back, not sure how I could have sneaked in.[/spoiler

Spoiler for Hiden:

Witches for me as well. I have since seen on boards that it is possible to sneak out the pot. No idea how. Apparently we missed a good melee trainer by dissing the ray of light. That's okay. No way I'm signing with the inqusition.